Full Moon Bar-B-Que

Non-Quest BBQ No 18 – Full Moon Bar-B-Que
Birmingham, Alabama

During my occasional travels, I try to sample BBQ at those near and far away places outside the Quest area. I just really, really like that stuff ... 

On my way from the Barons vs Stars game at Regions Park in Hoover to Vulcan Park in Birmingham, I had to eat something. At the ballpark, they had only those disgusting cheese nachos and other similar things, so by the time the Barons had finished their rally and beat the Stars 4-2, I was really hungry.

There are numerous BBQ places in Birmingham, but I thought, well, Full Moon is something you might expect a chop suey place named after, but not necessarily a southern chopped pork one, so I was anxious to check this out.

Full Moon Bar-B-Que is a franchise with eight locations in and around Birmingham. The business started in 1996 with the original place in Downtown Birmingham, but I went to one of the satellite stations at Valley Avenue, near Vulcan Park.

Well, the short story is, it is a family restaurant/sports bar that serves BBQ. Big screen TV’s all over the place, sports memorabilia, like a signed game shirt of Joe Namath on the walls, general layout and furniture like every other place with like an apple or a red pepper in its logo - the atmosphere of a streamlined eating culture.

But I was there to sample their food, although a nicer atmosphere would not have hurt my feelings.

They have a specialty there which is called “chow-chow”. Yes, like the furry dog with the blue tongue. It is a pickled cabbage dish that, according to Wikipedia “… found its way to the Southern United States during the expulsion of the Acadian people from Nova Scotia and their settlement in Louisiana.” So it is Canadian by origin, has a Chinese name and is served in Birmingham with BBQ.

How does it taste? Sour and spicy, with a nice crunch to it. I made the mistake of ordering it as a side dish, because I wanted to try it and the guy who took my order did not mention that it was included anyways. So, I ended up having a lot of chow-chow on my plate, plus baked beans, a freshly baked biscuit and the pulled pork. With a fountain drink, it came to just under thirteen bucks.

The pulled pork came with sauce on top, which I still find borderline criminal. Just let me choose what I want to put on my meat – I am a big boy and don’t need to have my plate fixed like a five year old. So I picked some sauce-free strands of the meat from the pile to get a taste of the flavor. Not bad, tender and moist, but also a bit on the fatty side. A hint of smoke flavor, not really a strong underlying meat aroma, though. Middle of the road pork, at best. The sauce on the other hand was just a one-dimensional thick red conglomerate, with spiciness as its main characteristic.

Better to take the chow-chow as sauce, which was also spicy but had a very distinctive hint of sourness, and some nice mustard aroma to it, as well. It was kind of like having a vinegar-pepper sauce mixed with a vinegar based slaw, plus some mustard.

The baked beans had quite a funky taste, which reminded me of onions. Never had that aroma in baked beans, and don’t need that ever again.

So, again the common wisdom that – generally, there are a few exceptions - you can’t get really good BBQ in franchise/chain places was confirmed. All you might get is okay BBQ with Canadian pickled cabbage.

 

Jailhouse BBQ

Quest Log No31 – Jailhouse BBQ
Somerville, Morgan County

From 1819 until 1891, Somerville was the county seat for Morgan County. Back then, it had a cotton gin, a cabinet maker, a law office, two hotels, a college and a male academy.

The old courthouse from 1837 is still standing there, and also the former jail building.

But the cotton gin, shops, hotels, and colleges are long gone and today this little town is home to about 350 people – and one killer BBQ place.

Located in the vicinity of the old jail, in what appears to could have been an annex of the jail back then, it oozes old southern charm and hospitality.

When I arrived there, I could only spot a walk-up window on the porch as the means of getting BBQ. Well, I thought, it surely is a most beautiful spring day, and I would not mind at all taking my lunch on that porch, which has a handful of wooden tables with benches on it.

So I approached the walk up window, where the owner took my order. After I answered his question “for here or to go?” with “for here”, he asked me if I not rather wanted to sit in their dining room. Well, sure, I would be delighted. So, said the man, come around, I meet you half way.

So I left the porch, trotted around the small backside of the building and sure enough, there was a tiny handwritten sign that pointed out that there actually was a dining room.

And what a splendid room that is – all wooden walls on three sides (the fourth side next to the kitchen is of corrugated metal), wooden ceiling, a ceramic tile floor, wooden furniture (about half a dozen tables for four), nicely decorated with old pictures and signs, with some whimsical pieces of BBQ culture (meaning pig sculptures …) sprinkled in.

And the people in there, the owner and his serving help, are just so nice and friendly people that one might think that by entering that dining room, you might step through a door back in time, to those better old days 150 years ago.

I ordered my usual pork plate, with potato salad and slaw on the side and was regaled to an almost perfect BBQ lunch.

The pork was chopped and utterly flavorful, with a perfect mixture of meat and smoke aromas. Although it had a small amount of visible fat, it nonetheless was very tender and had just the right amount of moisture. I probably ate half of it right away, until I remembered that I also probably should try the sauces. Quite frankly, the meat did not need any sauce, so I poured just a tad of the thick brownish-red sauce on it. Fruity aroma, no spiciness, just a good sweet BBQ sauce. The other sauce is based on vinegar, but also with no spiciness worth mentioning it is just sour. Mixed together it provides a very nice conglomerate, but as said before, using this with the formidable meat is not a must at all.

The potato salad, also home made as everything on the menu, was nothing short of phenomenal and ranks in the Top 3 in that category. Mayonnaise based with a very refreshing tartness, it complements the BBQ meat perfectly.

Also on the sour side, the slaw is certainly very tasty as well, but in comparison to the meat and the potato salad, it does not play in the same league.

Usually I shy away from having dessert in BBQ places, because that is generally not their area of expertise. But this time, after the waitress assured me that the lady who makes the pies for them knows what she is doing, I ordered a lemon pie.

Should have ordered two pieces – very fluffy, with distinct lemon flavor, not too sweet, just great.

For all that, including an unlimited supply of sweet tea, I paid a bit over twelve bucks. And another fourteen bucks for one of their T-Shirts (it has a pig behind bars on it … you got to have that if you are a BBQ person …).

So, this place is surely a cut above most of the rest, and the only drawback is that they are only open for business from Friday ‘til Sunday. Well, that and the fact that Somerville is not exactly a place where you could do any other business, recreation or just would hang around for a while, and then go to lunch at the local BBQ. Once you have seen the old courthouse, and maybe the new post office, you are done there and need not come back. But for that kind of BBQ experience, I would travel there for that sole reason. 

Pig Stand Bar-B-Que

Quest Log No30 – Pig Stand Bar-B-Que
Hartselle, Morgan County

When you Google “Hartselle, BBQ”, there are two places that show up. But there is also a third place that somehow does not register with Google – Pig Stand Bar-B-Que. This is rather unfortunate, because this place is way above your average BBQ joint, even by the lofty standards we here in North Alabama are accustomed to.

My wife and I spotted this place when we drove home from a visit to beautiful downtown Hartselle, on Highway 31 towards Decatur just outside of town. And I came back two days later to check it out.

With its red roof that resembles a barn, white windows and brick walls, the building looks very country-esk. Inside, there is a window in the wall where you order, pay and pick up your stuff, and right next to it is a white board where you find the daily specials. The red checkerboard vinyl floor and the red chairs and alternating red and white tables have a distinctive 1950s charm. The dining room furniture seems to be fairly new and everything is well maintained and spotless clean. It is a very nice atmosphere to dine in, brightly lit through the big windows at the sides, and there is space for maybe thirty people to sit.

As usual, I ordered the pork plate – large this time, because I was really hungry – which comes with the three sides of slaw, potato salad and baked beans.

The pulled pork was very lean and tender, a bit on the dry side, but the taste was just wonderful. It was a very well balanced combination of meat flavor and smoke aroma and clearly was one of the best BBQ meats I ever had.

There is really no need to pour sauce over it to enhance the flavor, but since they have them on the table, I just tried them.

The red thick dark red/brownish sauce is very fruity and somewhat spicy. The clear vinegar based pepper sauce is not exactly sour, but tremendously hot. There is clearly more than the standard black pepper in it, and I thought that I saw some red chili flakes in there too. Mixed together, I ended up with a rather spicy conglomerate, which was still very spicy, but was more to my liking than those two sauces by themselves.

As for the sides, the killer here is the BBQ beans. Very savory, not really sweet but with some actual meat in them – that is the way you do beans!

Unfortunately, the potato salad was going in the same direction, with a distinctive bacon taste – not my favorite, I like the sour variety better.

That I had with the slaw, which marinade was vinegar based and quite sour, yet with a strong hint of sweetness.

All together, the mixture of hearty, sour, smoky, and sweet flavors of the meat and the sides works very well together and lets Pig Stand Bar-B-Que stand out of the crowd. Too bad that Google, and so I guess the rest of the world, does not find the place. But take my word for it and drive there when you are in the neighborhood – sometimes, having to share such a great place with the world isn’t necessarily a good thing. 

Southern Hickory Barbecue

Quest Log No29 – Southern Hickory Barbecue
Hartselle, Morgan County

There ain’t no inside seating, just a few old weather beaten benches in a little nook just next to the walk-up window to the side of the building. There is a big spacious drive-up lane that leads to the drive-in window, though. This place, Southern Hickory Barbecue in Hartselle, is clearly geared towards the pick-up crowd.

There are two more Southern Hickories in Arab and in Cullman, and I wonder if they have inside seating there.

But it was such a gorgeous April day that my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed our lunch at the porch. Two months farther along in the year and our enthusiasm might be vanishing a bit on the prospect of having lunch under the baking Alabama summer sun.

As usual, I had a pork plate with slaw, potato salad, and baked beans, and my wife had a slab of ribs with the same sides.

The pulled pork was just great, very tender and very lean and just with the right amount of moisture, and the taste was very hickory-y. There is really no sauce needed to enhance the flavor, but it also don’t hurt if you sprinkle a bit of the peppery vinegar sauce it comes with on the meat, because the added spiciness gives the meat an additional aroma. That is how you do BBQ the right way, let the meat stand on its own merits and make the sauce optional for those of us who need an additional kick in the butt.

My wife’s ribs were also very tender, but not especially lean with some fat on it. Well, the taste was good, but certainly nothing to exchange the pulled pork for it.

We both thought that the baked beans were of the open-a-can-variety, but at least there was no cinnamon in it.

The slaw was sweet and vinegary-sour, whereas the sweetness dominated too much for both our taste. The potato salad was of the yellow-mayonnaise kind and also sweet and sour, but I found it to be deliciously on the sour side, whereas my wife was not really satisfied with the taste, which she found to be too sweet. She generally does not like sweetness in her potato salad – it’s a cultural thing, where she comes from the potato salad is tart and sour and never with even a hint of sweetness.

One very special item was the rib sauce. It was extremely fruity, with a good amount of spiciness and tasted not like anything we ever had in the BBQ sauce area. It seemed to have an Asian influence, and could even have such exotic aromas as Mango or Papaya in it. Anyway, whatever it is, it goes fabulously with the ribs.

A bread bun and a couple of pickle slices complete the plates.

For all this, plus two sweet teas (what else …?!) we paid about twenty one bucks. That is certainly not very cheap for a place with no inside seating, no table service and Styrofoam to-go containers as plates. But the quality of the food justifies the prices, and on a beautiful spring day, there is no better place to have your lunch in Alabama.

Countrys' Barbecue

Non-Quest BBQ No 17 – Countrys’ Barbecue

Troy, Alabama

During my occasional travels, I try to sample BBQ at those near and far away places outside the Quest area. I just really, really like that stuff ... 

When ancient Troy was excavated in the nineteenth century, jewelry, gold, diamonds and precious stones were found. Also, lots and lots of ceramic containers and earthen vessels were dug up, which contained the remnants of wine, olive oil, or meat. And some of those three thousand year old meat containers must have found their way into modern times Troy, Alabama. The meat I was served in one of their BBQ places today surely conjured those thoughts in me.

Country’s Barbecue is chain out of Columbus, Georgia, with restaurants in Alabama in Montgomery, Prattville and Troy.

I was on my way to the Rattlesnake Rodeo in Opp, when the urge for BBQ overcame me and it just happened that I spotted their place in Troy in time to satisfy my cravings. Or so I thought, but instead it turned out to be one of the more displeasing BBQ experiences ever.

The building looks rather country-ish on the outside, and inside it resembles your typical family-oriented chain-eatery. The walls are decorated with all kinds of vintage tin advertising signs, there are wooden booths with the ubiquitous faux green leather, and on the table you find a ketchup bottle and a metal tissue dispenser. All in all not a very original atmosphere, but at least clean and kind of nicely designed.

Service, on the other hand, was a rather mixed bag. They seemed to be understaffed for the prime lunch time, and though everybody was very friendly service was a little slow and not especially effective.

But I didn’t come here to be pampered, right?! I came here for the BBQ, so I ordered my usual pork plate with slaw and fries. Sorry, no potato salad on the menu – bummer.

Never mind that the two slices of untoasted white bread that were part of the meal arrived when I was almost halfway through – I am not that big a fan of that special kind of side item, anyway. Also, that the slaw was very watery, with no real taste whatsoever was not too important for me. On the other hand, I was more than a little disappointed that the fries were, well, floppy and lacked even the slightest hint of crunchiness, plus they tasted liked cardboard.

They have three sauces there, which are marked by their color – the lighter it is, the spicier the sauce. Well, the red sauce was just glorified ketchup. The orange sauce was very vinegary-sour, with a hint of mustard in it and a nice spiciness that left a mild tingling on the tongue. The yellow sauce, supposedly the hottest of the trio, was just bland, with no spiciness or taste whatsoever.

But the coup de grace was the meat. Lower quality than this I didn’t have many times before, and I sure hope that I do not have to endure something like that ever again in the future.

It was not pulled, but came chopped (or sliced, your choice), which was probably the only way to get those tough fibers apart – not even Hector, the Trojan hero from the war with the Greeks, could have pulled those strands apart.

Well, maybe if he used the many pockets of fat and gristle as points of attack, something that resembled pulled pork would be the result. Real fat, gristly pulled pork, of course. I had to leave about half of it on the plate – it was just uneatable.

So, this was one of the rather bad experiences I had so far in my BBQ quest. Fortunately, this place is not located in the quest zone – and quite frankly, what kind of BBQ the good people of Troy, Alabama, are being served is the least of my concerns. Their ancient name-givers pulled that big old wooden horse into the city walls, and out came the Greeks instead, and in modern Troy they have this restaurant that makes you think you would get BBQ – and what you really get is the leftover meat from the victory meal three thousand years ago.

Harvest Time BBQ

Quest Log No28 – Harvest Time BBQ
Harvest, Madison County

Best pulled pork ever. Best smoked chicken ever. Best baked beans and potato salad. Ever. But no ribs – yet. The folks at Harvest Time BBQ in Harvest were testing their first batch when we went there for lunch today. Apparently, they want to get it right before it finds its way on the menu.

This philosophy, that quality comes before all, and it is only worth doing it, if it’s done right, is evident in every little detail at that place.

Most other BBQ pit masters use hickory or mesquite wood for their fires.

The “Pork Dork” – it says so on his T-Shirt – uses pecan wood. It started when he used the wood of two pecan trees in his own backyard at family barbecues, and he still uses it at his new restaurant.

I’ve never had pecan wood smoked pork before, at least not knowingly, but that’s what I want to have exclusively from now on (… not gonna happen, I know …). It provides a very smooth, well rounded aroma, which is still distinctively smoky, but without the somewhat sharp bite of its hickory and mesquite cousins.

The pork is smoked – with just a little salt added - at very low temperature for up to twenty hours, which makes it supremely tender and juicy. And flavorful - it actually tastes like smoked pork, and not like smoke with pork.

So , of course I had my customary pork plate, with potato salad and slaw. Well, actually my wife’s chicken came with those sides, whereas my plate came with her baked beans. A little mix-up that worked to my advantage – eventually, I got to eat all three sides.

The potato salad was creamy and a little tart, with just the right amount of herbs and spices – I’d say this came near to perfection. The same is true for the baked beans, which did not even have a hint of sweetness, but came with big chunks of meat and a very hearty taste. The slaw was very crunchy and creamy, and tasted very fresh, but although it had a noticeable vinegary aroma, it was a bit too sweet for my taste. Not bad, not bad at all, but in comparison with the potato salad and the baked beans a clear bronze medal in this contest.

Usually, my wife would have had the ribs, but as I mentioned above, it is not on the menu yet. So she settled for the half chicken – and was blown away. She had a cup of white sauce at the side, but she did not use it at all. Instead, she soaked the meat in the juices that accumulated on the bottom of the plate. Did I ever mention that she is the real meat lover, in our family? Well, this chicken satisfied all her carnivorous cravings. The meat was succulent and the skin was crisp, and the flavor was smoky but not overwhelmingly so. Too bad that the bird was so big that by the time she was finished with it, all the sides were gone, except for the bag of chips.

I almost forgot, but the pulled pork came also with a sauce on the side (This is important: on the side. The Pork Dork’s comment on this is that “putting sauce on BBQ before serving is usually done to cover up something, such as it being too dry.” Amen, man!). You have the choice between a vinegar based thin and hot variety, and a thick and sweet one. I choose the vinegar sauce, which has a medium kick through some ground peppers – nothing fancy, just the right amount of hotness to make the flavor of the pork pop.

A piece of Texas toast completes the meals, and for just under nineteen bucks, including two sweet teas, that is a very fair deal in regards of the amount of food you get, and a downright steal in regards of the quality they give you for it.

The place itself – which is spotless, by the way - has only very limited space to sit down inside– about a dozen or so chairs around a counter and one tiny table. If all chairs are occupied, that should make for a very cozy and intimate atmosphere. But most people seem to use it as a drive-in kind of place, which is really a shame since they don’t have the opportunity to experience the extremely friendly and welcoming treatment you get from the staff. Southern hospitality at it’s best.

And there is something else, which may not be on top of the list for most customers at most BBQ places, but it also shows this attention to detail, this overall thought through philosophy that goes this one step beyond general expectations.

They filter their water through a reverse osmosis system, to remove toxins such as fluoride and chlorine. Really, everybody should do that before the water is used for even brushing one’s teeth, let alone for drinking or cooking. And they use 2 oz sauce containers – double the size which is usually found in restaurants - which they only fill half, so that they don’t spill when opened. Also, they don’t use MSG in any of their products. If there is such a thing as an “Organic” BBQ, this little place in Harvest, Alabama, certainly qualifies. I always knew that BBQ, if done right, was really the health food of the South.

Dirt Road BBQ

Quest Log No27 – Dirt Road BBQ
Trinity, Morgan County

Wikipedia says: “Dirt road is a common term for an unpaved road made from the native material of the land surface through which it passes …”.

Well, here in the BBQ belt, we certainly have no shortage of dirt roads. And we are also not in short supply of BBQ places that you can only reach by that kind of road.

So, when this new restaurant by the name of Dirt Road BBQ opened a while back, I had a certain image in my mind. Trees, wilderness, red earth, a wooden shack, 4x4 trucks parked beside it … you know what I am talking about.

I certainly did not expect to eventually find this place in a posh little strip mall, with pastel colored shop facades, next to the busy four-lane Highway 24 between Decatur and Moulton.

While the location and the exterior is a bit, well, unexpected, the interior conforms more to the anticipation one might have towards a BBQ place.

There are half a dozen tables in the middle of the room, and some booths on each side of the room. All furniture is made out of somewhat raw looking wood, and there are some nice details, like the lamps being made out of zinc water buckets. That all generates a nice rustic atmosphere, which could probably be boosted considerably by adding some artifacts and pictures from the dirt roads of the region. But since they opened only recently, decorating obviously was not at the top of the to-do list. Substance over style, I reckon, is their motto until they are out of the woods, financially.

But then there is the concierge table at the entrance – yes, you will be seated by a server. And your order is taken and brought to you at the table. Haven’t had that at many actual dirt road joints lately.

The drinks are served in mason jars with handles, which some people may find a bit pretentious. But in my point of view, it fits the overall interior style of this place quite nicely. I can see this whole concept spawning to become a franchise in later years.

.

Looking at the menu and listening to the waitress, it was very clear that they love to fry things there. Fried pickles, fried green beans, fried okra, fried Oreos, fried onion straws … the decorating money seems to have gone into the deep fryer fund.

My wife ordered the fried green beans as an appetizer and that was a big mistake. One bite and we both were hooked. The actual green bean only served as carrier for the batter, and did not register that much, flavor-wise. But the batter – sublime! We used very little of the accompanying spicy dipping sauce, because the flavor of the deep fried beans was just perfect by itself.

So, after that already very nice experience, for the main course we expected the same high standard.

As usual, I had pulled pork, this time with slaw, fried potatoes and onions, and loaded potato salads as sides.

My wife opted for the brisket with baked beans, fried okra, and fried potatoes and onions as sides.

The pulled pork was succulent, tender and lean. It had a very distinctive meat flavor with a hint of smoke aroma to it. I’d say, they know what they are doing in the kitchen.

It comes with sauce already poured over it, which is always a reason to frown. But since it was just a sprinkle, and also the sauce is very good, I did not mind it that much this time.

A sticky red concoction, the sauce is slightly spicy and not very sweet, it is fruity and well balanced. I put it on the slice of toast that came with the meal and thoroughly enjoyed it even without the meat.

The slaw looked a bit iffy at first sight, some micro-sized pieces swimming in brine. But actually, the taste was just wonderful. The brine was not salty at all, but had a finely rounded sweet and spicy flavor, which tickled my taste buds in a very exquisite way.

The loaded potato salad was creamy and fresh, with a hint of Dill and only a slightly sour flavor overall – wonderful.

Unfortunately, the fried potatoes and onions were a bit disappointing – they were just bland. But with a good helping of Salt and Pepper, it also became a very good tasting side.

My wife’s brisket was just the way she likes it - a bit on the fatty side, very flavorful with a distinctive meat aroma. She also loved the fried okra, which were very fresh and very crunchy. She had a gripe with the baked beans, which were too sweet for her taste, but fortunately they did not have that overwhelming cinnamon aroma that seems to spread like a disease in some baked beans. She also salted and peppered her fried potatoes and onions, like I did.

Well, she did not finish the meal, but decided to leave some room for a desert. The banana pudding she ordered was freshly made and still warm. It supposedly is an old recipe from Granny, and it was certainly not bad, just a little too sweet for her taste.

For just under thirty bucks, we got a big amount of food of very high quality, all fresh and home made with great taste, and it was an overall very pleasant eating experience in a nice atmosphere. If only I could overlook the silly name …

Yellow Dog Eats

Non-Quest BBQ No 16 – Yellow Dog Eats
Windermere, Florida

During my occasional travels, I try to sample BBQ at those near and far away places outside the Quest area. I just really, really like that stuff ... 

Here in the BBQ belt, we rightfully take good smoked meat for granted. There are so many great places where you can get your daily fix that you don’t need to spend much time thinking about where to go- just hit the next restaurant around the corner and enjoy. Other areas of the lower 48 are not as blessed, and there it is mostly depressing trial and much error involved in years of long searches for a decent BBQ place. But once in a while, there is a diamond sticking out from that ghastly puddle of mushy sliced pork, chicory infested sauces and funky tasting slaw, which surely would have a place in the North Alabama BBQ Championship Belt, if such a thing existed. Or, at least, it makes my personal Top Ten of favorite BBQ places in the whole world. I think, it might be time to generate some kind award for that.

Since I travel to Orlando often, I am constantly on the look out for good BBQ places there. Nothing soothes the mind better after a long day spent in nauseating business meetings than a pulled pork dinner plate.

A friend of a colleague recommended Yellow Dog Eats, and so we went there, to the historic little township of Windermere/Gotha, which is surrounded by Golf courses, lakes and villas, to check it out.

First of all, this is truly not your usual BBQ place. The atmosphere is more akin to a bohemian bistro, with the restaurant being situated in the century-old Gotha Country Store building.

Also, the customers clearly are not the typical BBQ crowd – not very many College team shirts, blue overalls, and greasy baseball caps to be seen, instead a mix of middle class business attire, gold rimmed eyeglasses and golf slacks.

And then there is, of course, the name – Yellow Dog Eats - which is predestined to produce a mental image of some kind of Korean Buffet or Mongolian Grill with many people. This somehow misleading name comes from a yellow dog in a painting that the owner evidently cherished very much. He really likes dogs, and if you have a picture of your own mutt handy, they will stick it to one of the walls in the building, which are already littered with dozens of them.

There is also a wall covered with shelves holding all kinds of home-made stuff – jellies, jams, sauces, pickled this and that, pumpkin butter and such things.

Another big area is dedicated to a very nice assortment of wines, and there is even a special room for wine tastings with the chef.

So, the setting is decidedly not run-of-the-mill by BBQ belt standards, and the food is most certainly not, either.

They have an assortment of salads and sandwiches, and about half the menu is dedicated to BBQ related items.

I had a sandwich, The Rufus, which is – hold on tight now, it’ll be a wild ride – succulent pulled pork, topped with thick cut Brie cheese, cherry ring peppers, drizzled with raspberry melba and yellow dog’s citrus BBQ sauce on a bun.

My colleagues had The White Trash, which is pulled pork served on a Sunbeam white bread, topped with spicy cole slaw, Gouda cheese and bacon, and The Elvis, which is a bun topped with pulled pork, thickly sliced bacon, Gouda cheese, fried onions and cole slaw. The cole slaw is made with cranberries, nuts and a little spice.

Sounds weird? It is not. It is eclectic - and unbelievably delicious.

The mix of textures and flavors on The Rufus were nothing short of exceptional. The Yellow Dog sauce, made with mustard, served as the sour component, the peppers added spiciness, the pulled pork, smoked over apple wood, had a wonderfully meaty taste with a laid back smoke flavor, the Brie gave the whole concoction a certain creamy tartness, and the melba sauce provided a hint of sweetness. It all went together splendidly in a harmonious mixture of unexpected ingredients.

A quick query showed that the other two sandwiches, The Elvis and The White Trash, were received equally enthusiastically by my colleagues.

We agreed that this place would be from now on a fixture in our usual rotation of eateries in the Orlando area.

4Rivers Smokehouse, Winter Garden

Non-Quest BBQ No 15 – 4Rivers Smokehouse

Winter Garden, Florida

During my occasional travels, I try to sample BBQ at those near and far away places outside the Quest area. I just really, really like that stuff ... 

The area around Orlando has a confusing variety of settlements that have “Winter” as part of their names. Winter Park, Winter Hills, Winter Garden … you name it, they have it. This is even more confusing if you take into account that the normal winter in this region consists of low temperatures around the half hundred mark, blue skies and sun all day, and that most people can’t even remember how it feels to make a snow angel. Maybe it is some kind of reverse psychology at work here, indicating that these places are the perfect sanctuaries to flee to from the dreary cold and dark skies usually involved with real wintery conditions.

So, after visiting the 4R Smokehouse in Winter Park the other day, I decided to try out the second of three locations of this small chain in Winter Garden.

Why, you ask? Good question, since I really did not like their food that much the first time, at the Winter Park location. Well, when I left the restaurant that evening, something caught my eye which intrigued me. They have a dish there that is called the “Six Shooter” and I just had to absolutely try this.

The Six Shooter consists of cheese grits topped with pulled pork, southern slaw, pickles, jalapenos and 4R sauce.

Strange concoction, isn’t it? But let me tell you this – it works. Even with the dreadful 4R sauce on it.

Or maybe because of it. There are so many layers of different texture and flavor, and they all work together splenditiously.

Except for the jalapenos, which I removed right away – too much Tex-Mex for my taste. I like them in burritos or tacos, but do not necessarily need too see them with anything related to BBQ.

The whole heap of food, again slapped directly onto the paper on the tray, looks less inviting than your typical road kill. Think exploded carcass, a big blob of anything that can be scraped off the blacktop on a hot smoldering summer day.

The process of preparing this culinary extravaganza starts with a block of compact cheese grits that is chopped into dice-sized pieces. Then comes a good helping of the pulled pork – unnecessarily drenched in the red 4R signature sauce, but since I already discussed my dismay of this practice exhaustively in the post before, I’ll let it slide this time – followed by their extremely good southern slaw, the jalapenos and the pickle. And then some more sauce. Lord have mercy.

But this time, the sauce actually is a perfect match, because it provides sweetness and a hint of bitterness to the heartiness of the cheese grits and the creamy sourness of the slaw.

The grits could as well stand on their own merits, they have a very creamy texture and a wonderfully full cheese flavor. Together with the other ingredients, it forms a very unique symbiosis of flavors. And for just under ten bucks with a drink, and taking also into account the sheer volume of food you get, this Six shooter hits the mark.

For this, I would come back gladly to the 4R chain. It seems to me as such a natural thing to combine grits with pulled pork, that I wonder why I haven’t seen this in one of our BBQ joints here in Northern Bama yet. How fantastic it could be with real good BBQ sauce, one can only speculate … and dream.

4Rivers Smokehouse, Winter Park

Non-Quest BBQ No 14 – 4Rivers Smokehouse

Winter Park, Florida

During my occasional travels, I try to sample BBQ at those near and far away places outside the Quest area. I just really, really like that stuff ... 


“Some people heat up some meat, slap some sweet’n’smoky sticky sauce on it and call it BBQ. That ain’t right.”

That quote from one of my buddies, although he is an avid Auburn Tigers fan and thus his judgment should be considered, well, questionable in many areas, hits the nail on the head.

Sure, the sauce is important for BBQ, but it should not be the main ingredient, or even the one aspect which qualifies using those three holy upper case letters.

As I stated repeatedly already, the Orlando, Florida region is not quite a hot bed for good or even real, BBQ. The area is littered with chain restaurants and most of them serve what the average tourist from overseas expects under the moniker of BBQ.

And that is, sadly, some heated up meat with a red sticky sauce, which has this rather uniformly smoky sweet and spicy taste, otherwise also known as “St. Louis style”.

During my numerous endeavors to find a halfway decent BBQ joint in Orlando, I came across just one so far – the subtly named Bubbalou’s Bodacious BBQ.

But then I heard about this fabulous place, 4Rivers Smokehouse, and was practically urged to go there by people who knew about my conundrum.

Spoiler alert – it was not bad, but the sauce …

You can visit a 4Rivers Smokehouse in one of three locations outside of Orlando. I chose the one in Winter Park, a virtual extended suburb of the big city, about fifteen miles to the north.

When I arrived at about six in the evening, the place was already packed and when I left the line of would-be BBQ customers extended outside the building to the curb. It seems that this is a very popular place for the locals. I reckoned that I was the only bloody tourist there, because it is located quite far away from the typical stomping grounds of the Disney crowd. Plus, I heard more Spanish around me than any other language.

The place in Winter Park is predominantly a carry-out affair. They have a covered porch with simple wooden picnic-style furniture, but what is really lacking is enough parking space. The one small parking lot at the main street was packed and the other one, also very small and of the gravel variety, behind the building was also almost full. As I said before, this seems to be a very popular place with the locals.

The main area of the restaurant is the tiny room were orders, preparation and payment of your meal is done. You chose from the quite extensive menu, which is written down all across the wall behind the counter, step to the counter and state your choice. A plastic tray is grabbed by the order guy, who then slaps a piece of thick white paper (or thin white cardboard, if you like …) on the tray and scribbles the initials of your order on one corner of the paper – PPD for Pulled Pork Dinner in my case.

Then the tray behind the counter and you in lockstep in front of the counter, progress to the next station – the meat.

Different from other Texas style BBQ joints, where the use of this assembly-line style system is quite typical, here they do not carve the meat before your very eyes, but some guy just scoops up a few spoons of pulled pork from a metal holding box and slaps it right onto the paper on the tray. Then he spouts a good helping of the signature 4R BBQ sauce on it. Lovely.

But, no time to pout, on it goes to the next station – sides.

Potato salad, slaw and BBQ beans, please. The sides are filled in Styrofoam cups, a biscuit also finds its way on the tray and off you go to meet your dinner plate at the cashier. The whole meal, including a bottle of Red Rock Cola (they have a very nice assortment of gourmet and specialty soda refreshments there …), was mine for about fourteen bucks.

When I stepped outside, to go around the small side of the building to the covered porch, I could not help but wondering how in the world I should eat this heap of saucy meat and the equally wet sides (… more 4R sauce on the beans … mayonnaise on the slaw and the potatoes …) in any form of a civilized manner – nobody had offered me a fork, and I hadn’t seen any inside, either.

The mystery was lifted when I saw the fork, universal spoon, and knife dispenser next to the Coke machine. Nice touch, it works just like a toothpick dispenser.

Thus armed with plastic utensils, I tried to find a piece of meat that was not drenched with this signature 4R BBQ sauce, to find out if they knew how to smoke a pig. No such luck. The color of the meat told me right away that the real taste of the meat would stay shrouded in obscurity. Although it was quite tender and succulent, it was red, like in “after we pull the meat, we drown it in our signature 4R sauce”. Well, that was a bit unfortunate, but I could maybe overlook it if the sauce was something special and exquisite. Not the case. I bet there is chicory in it, because it had a somewhat bitter aftertaste. And at the same time it was sweet, so damn sweet that it actually hurt one of my sensitive molars on the right side of my teeth. Yes, it has some spiciness to it, and at the table they have another variety of this sauce with a bit more kick to it. And I really can’t quite lay my finger on it, but the sauce tasted rather artificial, with too many preservatives and synthetically enhanced flavors in it perhaps.

Their web site states that “The recipe is multi-regional making it a perfect combination of sweet and tangy with a smoky spice finish.”

A multi-regional BBQ sauce. And what regions should that be? The web site does not give an answer, but it was a rhetorical question anyway – I really don’t wanna know.

Too bad that the BBQ beans swam also in this 4R sauce, bottles of it you can buy also directly in the restaurant, of course.

The potato salad’s taste was very good, with a hint of dill and just the right mixture of tangy and fresh. But unfortunately half of the potato pieces were basically raw, so I refrained from tormenting my guts with that indigestible stuff, tasty as it may be.

Actually the best part of the meal was the slaw. Crunchy and fresh, with a light yoghurt sauce that does not smother the flavor of the vegetables, and a creamy overall texture, it was a delight.

So, overall, this experience just fortified my conviction that Texas-style BBQ and I will never become best buddies. It was a big amount of food, and it was certainly eatable. But the taste was, mostly through the overly generous use of the sauce, not what I would call my personal favorite.

Mary's Pit Bar-B-Que

Quest Log No26 – Mary’s Pit Bar-B-Que
Gurley, Madison County

The building has two doors in the front. Back in 1958, when it they opened Mary’s Pit Bar-B-Que in what was then the hamlet of Maysville, you would enter through the right door if the complexion of your skin was pale, and through the left door if it was not so pale. Since then, the left door has been blocked, so everybody uses the right door now, independently of their tan lines, but not much more seems to have changed there in over fifty years.

The actual “restaurant”, and I use this term rather loosely again, is a teeny room with a window in the back where you order and receive your meal, a small narrow counter next to it with six round, worn down bar-stools on metal poles (one of the seats is missing, though), the menu on a pin-board at the opposite wall, a white board with the daily specials on the small wall of the room, a pink trash can in one corner and a very low ceiling with lots of scribblings, cartoons and what I would call “country-graffiti”, on it.

Most of the folks who get their food here do it as take-out fare. And everybody seems to know each other, judging from the conversations I overheard when I was there – it seemed to me as if this place is the “original facebook”, where people from the neighborhood come together and just chat a little with each other face to face, while waiting for their pork sandwiches.

All in all it is a very homey atmosphere, but certainly you would not find “outsiders” like me and my wife there too often. They don’t have a web site, there is no sign on the nearest Highway, US 72, which is about four miles to the west, there is only word of mouth and the locals just simply know that Mary’s is there. So if you don’t have a friend from that area who tells you were to go, you certainly would just drive by the right exit on the Highway ignorantly on your way to or from Huntsville.

This would be a real shame, because apart from the genuine and cozy atmosphere, you would miss out on great food.

As usual, I had the pork plate, which was not a real plate this time, because the supplier didn’t show that week and so they had to improvise. The pork came in a cardboard basket, and the sides in Styrofoam cups. Oh, well, from my point of view this only added to the quirky authenticity of this place. I also had a soda, which came in the original can, and my wife had a slab of ribs. Oddly enough, they had no idea what she was talking about when she ordered a “half rack of ribs”, and we were lucky that a young guy, who apparently had already seen the world despite his youth, translated it for us into the native lingo. It’s the same county we live in, but twenty-five miles apart from each other, three valleys further, we already use different terms for the same things. Amazing.

And “amazing” also describes the ribs real well. Firm and lean, with an excellent dry rub on them, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside; they had a lot of meat on them and just the right amount of fat to enhance the smoky flavor. According to my wife, there was a distinct basic pork aroma in those ribs, and she ranks them in the top three of her list. She didn’t use the accompanying sauce, because that would have just diluted the blissful taste of the pure ribs. The BBQ beans that came with the ribs were, well, very similar to the stuff you get in one of those cans from the supermarket – but the top notch can, to make that clear. The biscuits that came with it were somewhat small and unassuming.

My pork also had a nice flavor, yet it was a bit soggier as I would have liked. It was not submerged in moisture, but I usually like my meat more on the dry side of the spectrum, and this it clearly wasn’t. The sauce that came with it was your run of the mill spicy vinegar variety, which I noticed is kind of a staple on that side of the Monte Sano Mountains. On our side, to the west, the sauces are usually thicker and more fruity than vinegary, or even made with mustard in some places, but once you drive down the hills on the east side, you will find that there the thin liquid vinegary stuff rules. Interesting - you don’t even have to leave the county to be in a fairly different BBQ-world.

As for the sides, the potato salad also reminded me of the concoctions you find in a Supermarket. But the slaw was a different story – it appeared to be hand made, with a very delicious sweet-and-sour taste and with quite a crunchy bite to it.

All in all, we paid twenty-five bucks for a very good meal, where the ribs and the slaw were the two items that clearly stood out. And the atmosphere, the history of that place, the friendliness of the people, the stories you hear there, are just priceless.

The Bar-B-Q Smoke House

Quest Log No25 – The Bar-B-Q Smoke House
Decatur, Morgan County

Seventeen Dollars for a BBQ lunch is a bit unusual. Even more so, if the place does not really qualify as a fancy-schmanzy gourmet temple, or does not have yet reached national celebrity status, like some other place in Decatur. No, the rusting, man-high rooster on the bottom of the sign-pole in front of the building, plus some kind of a flying pig on the sign that says “The Bar-B-Q Smoke House” surely indicates a more down to earth eating experience.

Well, down to earth is the level of comfort when you leave this Smoke House, dragging your full belly behind you after trying in vain to leave a clean three-meat combo plate with all the fixin’s – you get a lot, and I really do mean A LOT of food for seventeen bucks. I thought I was hungry enough to master this challenge, but had to admit defeat eventually.

So, what you get when you order the three meat combo plate is three meats (pork or beef, ½ chicken, ribs), slaw, beans, two slices of Texas toast, and a basket full of potato wedges.

Since I am not a big fan of chicken (too much work involved in ripping the meat off the bones – I am not here to practice my hand-eye coordination, but to dig in …), I told the very nice lady behind the counter, just give me more pork instead of the bird.

The pork was actually very nicely smoked, with a fine but distinctive smoke aroma, although it was a bit too dry for my taste. It was very tender and the size of the pulled bites was just perfect. They give you four sauces with the plate, two for the pork and two especially for the ribs. The mild pork sauce is very flavorful, with a rich (apple cider?) vinegar body. The hot variety is the same basic stuff, just with some peppers added. Both sauces do complement the pork perfectly.

The rib sauces are thicker, with a bit more sweetness to them. Also here, the hot sauce is a spiced up variety of the mild sauce. Again, both go very well with the ribs, but I also used them on the pork – with no apparent damage to my health. They also have a white sauce in their repertoire, but since I did not want the chicken, I also did not get the white sauce – tough luck.

My thought on the ribs is that their quality was not even in the same ballpark with the pork. They were kind of pale, and although the taste was actually very good, I prefer a good crust and red meat. There was a lot of real tender meat on them, but the apparent lack of a dry rub to give them a bit more kick was a small disappointment.

The sides, on the other hand, were excellent.

Especially the potato wedges were a revelation. They came fresh out of the oven, with an herb crust on them that was just wonderful. The barbeque beans were very good, as well, without the ubiquitous cinnamon, but with a very nice rounded sweet flavor. The slaw looked kind of funky, being more brownish than the usual green/white color, but it tasted very good and I guess here too the apple cider vinegar was used.

I did not really care that much for the Texas toast, which was kind of dry and uninspired.

On the other hand, the atmosphere in this place is very inspiring. They have only a handful of tables to sit in there, but each table has a nice view at the proceedings on the Point Mallard Parkway that runs directly in front of parking lot.

The furniture is wooden tables on poles with laminated regional advertisements on top of it, and metal tube chairs. No booths, no plastic, no fake fanciness.

There is a constant coming and going, and most customers are greeted with their names, and also seem to know each other, too. I guess that not many tourists like me, from, say, Madison or Limestone Counties, ever find their way to this little jewel of southern cuisine and southern hospitality in Decatur. But if you are really hungry and want to fill your belly with real quality southern food, you should maybe consider an expedition to the Smoke House once in a while – you will be rewarded richly for your boldness.

Nash BBQ on the Beltline

Quest Log No24 – Nash BBQ on the Beltline

Decatur, Morgan County

“You had the rest, now try the best”.

Proud words that they have on their web site. To make a long story short, yes, I had the rest, and quite many of them are better than Nash BBQ on the Beltline in Decatur. In fact, Nash ranks in close proximity to the very bottom of the list of places I’ve visited so far.

Well, they also claim – on their web site again - that “Hickory smoked BBQ is our specialty” and that they are “still using the same recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation”.

I’d say making bold claims is their real area of expertise.

Hickory smoked … yeah, right. My question would be what they were smoking when they put this on their web site. The meat, pulled pork, was as far removed from being hickory smoked, as I am from winning a Nobel Prize. It tasted very sour, which probably came from the fact that it was drenched in some kind of vinegar-pepper marinade. Even the strongest hickory aroma could not survive that kind of treatment. And quite frankly, I immediately thought “slow cooked” after the first few bites. It was very tender, reasonably lean, and not too mushy, but it certainly lacked every other quality I think an expertly smoked piece of meat should possess.

So, the first and foremost feature of the pork was its sourness, which was then even kicked up a notch through the vinegar-pepper sauce that came in a little cup on the side, and which I foolishly poured over the meat without tasting it first.

That the cole slaw reminded me of a heap of shredded glass that was lying in a puddle of water is not really important here. Looks can be deceiving and actually the relative sweetness of the slaw was a nice counterpart to that vinegar orgy my pork had become. Without that, judged by itself, I fear my appreciation of this particular type of slaw would be less enthusiastic.

Which can be said without any hesitation of the potato salad – it was one of the sorriest excuses to slice a potato in a long time. Can you say “out of a can” …?! Apparently, the folks at Nash can.

Complementing this array of substandard parts was two slices of plain white toast, neatly wrapped in butcher paper.

For all that glorious failure, I paid a little over nine bucks, with a drink. Well, at least the iced tea was freshly brewed and not too sweet.

Oh, I almost forgot – the atmosphere of this place is … special. Nine tables, brown and green checkered linoleum floor, empty walls except for two tiny flat screen TVs and a black board with leaflets on it. That’s it. Frugal. Sober. Boring. Like a freakin’ Hospital cafeteria. But the folks working in there were very friendly and that reconciled me a bit with the rest of my dining experience. “Come again”, were the parting words from the kitchen, when I left. Fat chance. And I would also not recommend betting the farm on me visiting the two other locations of Nash BBQ in Decatur and Hillsboro.